The Last Legionary Quartet

by Douglas Hill

  And the pain is gone.’

  ‘Yes – we have removed the radiation from your body. Soon you will be fully restored to your normal state of health – which, it seems, is quite remarkable.’

  ‘If that is so,’ Keill said slowly, ’then I will owe you a debt that I can never repay. And I will want to know all the more who you are, and why this is happening.’

  ‘Just so,’ said the figure. ‘There is much to tell you. There is much also that you cannot be told. But I will explain what I can.’

  The figure settled back in its chair, folding its long hands, and continued.

  ‘I am one of a group of people, mostly old dodderers like myself—’ the warm voice chuckled as before

  ’—who can immodestly call themselves some of the leading intellects of the Inhabited Worlds. Most of us are scientists of one sort or another. You would doubtless recognize many of our names, if you were ever to know them.’

  ‘You told me your name,’ Keill interjected.

  ‘Talis is the name I use now. It is not my true name – and that I cannot tell you.’

  Keill shrugged and remained silent, while the image of the old man called Talis went on. He told Keill how most of the individuals in the group had known each other for a long time, had often worked together, conferring over problems of far-reaching importance round the galaxy. More and more they had been invited to work on specific problems by governments of different planets, here and there –

  because they were able to bring a vast range of knowledge, and a special kind of overview, to the solution of such problems.

  And it was just that overview, Talis said, that gave them an early warning of a new problem within the human worlds. A threat, a danger, that might well in the end affect the future of the entire galaxy.

  Keill might have interrupted again, but the old man, not to be hurried, held up a hand to stop him.

  ‘When we saw the magnitude of this danger,’ Talis continued, ’we made up our minds that we must pool all our resources, all our knowledge and abilities, to oppose it. We also knew that if we opposed it, we ourselves would be in immediate danger. So we abandoned the lives we were then leading, and came here.’

  ‘Where is here? ’ Keill asked.

  ‘We are on – more correctly, within – an asteroid,’ Talis said. ‘A wandering piece of space debris, which appears on no star maps or charts of the spaceways.’

  And he explained how he and the nameless others had constructed a secret base for themselves within the asteroid – with the most advanced laboratories, communications equipment and special protective devices that they could contrive. It had been a long, slow process, for secrecy had to be absolute. During the process, Talis said, all of his companions had disappeared from their home worlds, as undramatically as possible. They had made sure that official records would show, if anyone inquired, that many of them had died, as old people will. The rest of them would have seemed to have retired, fading away into obscurity and senility.

  ‘We know that we cannot be traced here, or located,’ Talis said. ‘And we know that here we must stay, within our asteroid, and do everything in our power to counter the growing threat – that may one day soon endanger the very existence of the galaxy as we know it.’

  Keill frowned dubiously. ‘You’ll pardon me if I find all this hard to take in. What is this terrible threat?

  And what is it all to do with me being here?’

  ‘Do not take it too lightly, Keill Randor.’ The old voice was sombre. ‘We are confronting an enemy of frightening power, and even more frightening intentions. He is all humanity’s enemy – but he is even more particularly your enemy. For he is the one who murdered your world.’

  CHAPTER SIX

  Shock jolted Keill into a sitting position – but the movement drenched him with sweat again, and dizziness swept over him, blurring his vision. He sagged back against the cushioned bed, and the hooded figure in the holo-image leaned forward anxiously.

  ‘You must not over-tax yourself,’ Talis said. ‘I have spoken for too long, and I fear I have distressed you. Now you must rest, and we will speak again when you are stronger.’

  ‘No – wait...’ Keill said weakly. ‘I must know...’

  But the holo-image vanished as abruptly as it had appeared, and the room was silent once more.

  Keill lay back, limp with the emotions that boiled within him, the desperate need to know more. He might have tried to shout, even to get up, though his limbs felt as if they were made of water. But a sound from one side diverted him.

  Twisting his head around, he saw a section of the wall swing silently inwards, though there had been no sign of a door-seam. Through the opening rolled a wheeled, upright cylindrical shape – a robot servitor, bearing a beaker upon its level upper surface.

  It came to a stop beside the bed. The beaker held a milky liquid, fragrant, steaming slightly. Keill found that he was desperately thirsty. He picked up the beaker, grimly forbidding his hand to shake, and drained the contents. When the empty beaker was replaced, the servitor rolled away, and the wall closed as blank and seamless as before.

  The drink had been bland, but flavoursome and warm. It also seemed soothing, relaxing – and then Keill knew that it was certainly drugged, that again the numbness was invading his mind, quietening its turmoil, and he was drifting into sleep.

  When he awoke again he felt as refreshed as before, and more of his strength seemed to have returned.

  He was able to sit up without effort – though when he swung his legs off the bed and tried to stand, he found himself shaky, and was glad to sink back down on to the contoured padding.

  But the room remained empty. Keill tried shouting, calling Talis’s name, demanding his return – but no image formed, no voice came.

  Instead the robot servitor appeared, as before. It bore another drink – a clear, cool liquid this time – and a bowl containing a gruel-like substance. Keill tasted them suspiciously at first, but growing thirst and hunger drove him to empty the containers. And this time there was no drug, only refreshment, pleasant tastes, and the restorative feeling of food in the stomach.

  The robot’s entrance had also coincided with the opening of another panel in the wall behind Keill, revealing a small shower-and-lavatory unit, as compact as the same facility on a spaceship. He needed the support of the robot to make use of it, and fell back exhausted when he returned to the bed. But it was another step ahead, another step towards the time when his strength would be returned and he could become his own master again – and begin to find out what was really happening.

  From then on, the undisturbed days continued – if they were days, for Keill had no way of measuring the passage of time within the blank-walled room. He slept and woke, ate and drank, rested and thought – sorting through the questions and the doubts that swarmed within him.

  He could not bring himself to accept what he had been told by the old man called Talis – because it seemed too improbable, and because too much had been left unexplained. A group of aged scientists hiding themselves away so as to fight some nameless enemy? The same enemy being the destroyer who had wiped out the Legions of Moros?

  The questions of ’who’ and ’why’ bulked too large, too unanswerable. And he had been offered no evidence of any of it, save one holo-image of an old man keeping his face hidden.

  He assembled what facts he had, testing their solidity. He had just entered his ship, on Saltrenius, when someone – or something – had come behind him and felled him with a needier. He was now in an empty room somewhere, tended by a robot. He had gone through some prolonged physical ordeal, which had left him weakened – and which had seemed to require some highly sophisticated technology. And he was free of pain.

  Or was he? Was even that a true fact? Certainly there were drugs that could blot out even that much pain. But he did not feel drugged – he was alert and clear-headed, despite his body’s shakiness.

  Then perhaps, as he had thought befor
e, he was lying in a hospital somewhere, in the terminal stages of his illness, finishing out his life in delirium.

  Did the hallucinations of delirium go on as long as these past events seemed to have? He did not know.

  Would they be so detailed, in such an ordered routine, as his days now were in this room? He did not know.

  The questions pursued themselves round in circles within his mind till he was weary of them. In the end, he knew very little. In time, perhaps, if Talis returned, or if other developments came along, he would learn more.

  Meanwhile, his legionary discipline reasserted itself. A man did not fret over situations he could not hope to alter. A man did not waste energy gnawing at questions for which there seemed, as yet, no answers. If it was necessary to wait, then a man must wait – calm, controlled, patient.

  And he must keep himself ready at all times to act, instantly, when action became possible.

  So Keill readied himself. He began a programme of light exercises at regular intervals – routine ones that he had known from childhood. As he grew stronger, he extended the work-outs, regaining more and more of his normal suppleness, agility and strength. And he was aware that Talis, or someone, was keeping his progress under observation – for his meals grew larger and more substantial as his output of energy increased.

  Then one day, as if to underline how far he had come from being weak and bed-ridden, the robot brought not only his usual meal but also his clothing.

  His full uniform was there – cleaned, fresh, showing no signs of wear. As if it were a new one made exactly to the specifications of the old.

  He dressed quickly, delighting in the familiarity of the garments, feeling even more fully himself. And his delight increased when he slipped a hand into a tunic pocket and drew out the light chain with, dangling from it, his identity disc. Its angry red glow faded, shifted to the sky-blue of normality as he took it in his hand, then quickly put the chain round his neck.

  Now, he thought, I am a legionary again.

  Even so, the routine went on, and still no contact came from Talis. Keill persisted in his self-directed programme of exercise, testing himself ever more strenuously. Until the time came at last when he could put himself through the complete routine of gruelling physical stresses that had formed his basic training scheme for the Festival of Martial Games, on Moros.

  When he emerged from that routine sweating only lightly, his breathing even, his body still resilient, with a reserve of energy left, he knew he was ready.

  The time of waiting was over.

  When the robot next came, Keill did not hesitate. As the wall panel swung open, he simply hurdled the small wheeled cylinder, and was out – to seek his freedom.

  He found himself in a narrow passageway, dimly lit, with metallic floor, walls and ceiling. Closed doors, like the hatchways of spaceships, interrupted the smoothness of one wall here and there along its length.

  The doors were tightly secured, and Keill did not waste energy trying to break through them. They were made of the special quaternium alloy used for the hulls of fighting ships, well able to resist heavier assaults than even he could manage bare-handed.

  He raced along the passage. It took an L-turn to the right, and offered him two gangways, downwards and upwards. Without pausing he chose the downward steps – and came to a sizeable chamber containing an array of complex machinery, in separated compartments.

  Most of this equipment he recognized – the air and water recyclers especially. It all seemed to be larger and more intricate forms of the standard life-support systems for spacecraft. And the bulkiest device, in the central position, was surely a very advanced form of gravitational unit.

  So he was on some form of space station or artificial satellite, he realized. Perhaps Talis’s story of a secret, hollowed-out asteroid was true.

  But he would not know unless he could get outside it. And for that he would need at least a space suit, preferably with a weapon, and – if luck were really with him – a ship of some sort.

  He retraced his steps, racing up to the upper level. More passageways, but often now with doors that opened. They revealed a series of chambers that were clearly laboratories – crammed, one and all, with collections of equipment that Keill, who thought of himself as fairly knowledgeable about technology, could not begin to fathom.

  Another gangway led upwards, and he sprinted along it. It took him up to a chamber heaped, floor to ceiling, with book tapes and information tapes of every kind, and a number of viewers scattered among them. Beyond that room was an observation chamber, with a broad viewscreen offering a panoramic segment of star-filled space. Abundant star-maps, charts of the space lanes, computer outlets were available around the room.

  It was a welcome sight, for Keill knew that if he was able to escape, he might need the information within that room to get his bearings, and his direction.

  But he did not linger there just yet. He had heard no sound of an alarm being raised, nor had there been any sign of pursuit. But he did not doubt that his disappearance from the room had been noted – and Talis, or someone, would surely be working out how to put an end to his wild flight.

  Another passageway, and more closed doors. Another gangway, leading again to a higher level. Another chamber...

  He came to an abrupt halt, barely able to contain the yell of exultation that rose in his chest.

  The broad chamber before him – with a high, curved ceiling that had to be the outer hull of whatever space structure he was in – contained his own ship.

  It gleamed and shone as it had not done since it had first come out of production on Moros. Old battle scars and stains had been removed, the blue Legion insignia re-embossed, the blunt snouts of the weapons polished. It looked as newly remade as his uniform had. And it was the most heartening sight Keill had seen for a long time.

  His first instinct was simply to climb in and blast his way out through the ceiling. But as he began to move round the ship towards the entrance, he hesitated.

  It might be more sensible, he thought, to arm himself from the store of weapons in his ship, and go in search of Talis. Even if he had to burn his way through some of those closed doors.

  Then he would be able to demand answers to all those crucial questions that the old man had left hanging in the air. About why he was keeping Keill there. And what Talis knew of the destruction of Moros.

  It was possible that his store of weapons had been removed from the ship. But at least the airlock hatch was invitingly open, the ramp down. And there was no one in the way.

  But as he approached the ramp, he heard a weirdly out-of-place sound. One he had heard before – the night he had tried to steal his own ship, on Saltrenius.

  Like a cloth, flapping in the wind...

  He glanced up, and froze.

  A winged creature, like nothing he had ever seen, was hovering above his ship.

  The wings – broad, veined membranes that looked flimsy, almost translucent – flapped again as the creature settled upon the ship’s hatchway. There it perched, folding its wings, regarding Keill through two large, colourless, perfectly circular eyes.

  Its body was less than a metre high, and narrow, covered with what looked like overlapping plates of soft skin, purplish-grey. Its head seemed too large for the little body, rounded and dome-like, with a small tapering snout beneath the great eyes. And it was a biped – though each of the two small feet seemed in fact more like hands, having three sturdy, jointed toes like fingers, and a fourth one opposing, like a thumb.

  But it was not perched on both feet. It was balanced on one.

  The other one was, incredibly, gripping a needle-gun – and aiming it unwaveringly at Keill.

  Keill’s astonishment deepened even further in the next instant – when he heard a voice.

  Not the voice, as before, of the old man called Talis. Not any kind of voice that Keill could hear externally, in his ears.

  This voice formed itself within Keill’s mind.
<
br />   And it said:

  Is it not comical, human-called-Randor, that I must once again use a weapon to keep you from your own ship?

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  At gun-point, withthewinged creature fluttering behind and above him – out of reach even if Keill had been tempted to attack it – he was herded out of the domed chamber that held his spaceship. Down another passage they went, the creature’s wing-tips brushing the walls, and finally through a door that, Keill remembered, had been solidly locked when he had come that way before.

  Now it swung silently open, revealing a long, low, abundantly furnished room that was clearly designed for comfort and relaxation. Low, cushioned seats were scattered around on the soft floor-covering, the lighting was quiet and mellow, tables here and there were piled with book tapes.

  Keill took it all in with a glance, reserving his full attention for the figure seated in the centre of the room.

  It was Talis, robed and cowled as before – but there was no doubt that this time it was not a holo-image.

  He was there in the flesh.

  The old man gestured towards a chair opposite him, inviting Keill to sit. Keill did so slowly, turning to watch the winged creature – which settled on the back of another chair, folding its delicate wings, still well out of reach. And still aiming the needle-gun at Keill, while gazing at him unblinkingly with its round, luminous eyes.

  ‘I very much regret...’ Talis’s kindly voice began.

  Keill interrupted. ‘Is this,’ he asked, gesturing at the creature, ’the thing that attacked me on Saltrenius?’

  Talis sighed. ‘Yes, but attacked is not really the right word...’

  ‘What is it?’ Keill demanded.

  ‘An alien,’ said Talis, ’of a race that calls itself the Ehrlil. From another galaxy.’

  Keill was startled, but his face remained impassive. ‘And telepathic?’

  Before Talis could reply, words again formed soundlessly in the depths of Keill’s mind.

  I project with ease, human. But I receive with difficulty from the mudheads of this galaxy.